48 MEMOIR OF AUGUSTUS DE MORGAN. 



1831. sympathy -which money cannot buy, shown with a delicacy 

 which benevolence itself cannot always command. 



The reference to an opponent points to Sir James 

 South, who had become before this time a general oppo- 

 nent of most of his scientific friends. He joined Mr. Bab- 

 bage, who had accused some members of the Astronomical 

 Society of being in a conspiracy against him, and this 

 accusation elicited from Mr. De Morgan the following 

 description of his own relations with three of his 

 friends : 



The con- < The only conspirators named were MM. Airy and 



Sheepshanks. These two and myself lived together in 

 intimate friendship, officers of the Astronomical Society 

 through a long course of years, ... we three, and each 

 for himself, deciding that he was a rational and practi- 

 cable man, and that the other two, no doubt worthy and 

 rational, were a couple of obstinate fellows. Francis 

 Baily thought the same of all three. I suppose we were 

 an equi-tenacious triangle. But never a sharp word, I am 

 sure, passed between any two of the four. Men of Science 

 are not always quarrelsome ; and, as often happens when 

 obstinate persons are reasoners, we were generally of one 

 line of action, with occasional repudiation of each other's 

 views. In all the many pleasant laughs we have had 

 together about the doings of the two common assailants, 

 nothing ever emerged which gave me the least impression 

 of the existence of any common purpose in the two other 

 minds, with reference to the eccentric anomalies of the 

 Astronomical world.' 



Captain, afterwards Admiral Smyth, soon after this 

 time came from Bedford, and took up his abode in 

 Cheyne Walk, Chelsea. He, assisted, I have heard, by his 

 bowl of punch, was the life of the Astronomical Club, a 

 little meeting of chosen friends who repaired after the 

 business of the Society to the Piazza Coffee-house. 

 Captain Smyth was a genial companion and a quaint, 

 pleasant writer, devoted to Astronomical science. He also 



